the frig blig

to the hospital as I type these words (it was reported via C -> S). After two years in liver limbo he has a donor. Our thoughts and prayers are beaming towards Bob tonite!

I went in to work today, sunday, in order to migrate a database server to newer hardware. It took less time than I expected, and I only had one small problem to fix afterwards. I was happy, so when I got home earlier than expected I decided to continue sysadmin duties on my home systems. Nothing I attempted at home worked.

Item #1: create a new virtual machine in vmware server. Midway thru creating a virtual disk the red fault lights appear on my mirrored raid disks where the vms are located. The ‘create disk’ task fails. A system reboot displays the scary “the superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem’ error and drops the console into recovery mode. Yikes! But I’ve seen this before, and a hard power-down and restart brings the system back (apparently vmware’s ‘create virtual disk’ routine breaks the raid mirror set). I need to check if there are firmware or driver updates for my raid controller, I suppose. Maybe later.

Item #2: tried to install the newly released version 3-3.5 of cvc_linux vpn client on my fc5 laptop. The .tar.gz file isn’t a valid gzip file, and rpm barfs on the .rpm file. Both downloaded from the vendor’s website twice to make sure the download wasn’t bad. Sheesh.

‘Nuf work for the day; Suzan and I are going out to see the SuperSones (with Justin, vocals & percussion) at the Triple Door shortly and forget about stupid computers for a while.

Highlights of our weekend in Portland: spending time with the hospitable and entertaining C and Skyler chatting, eating and making art; learning to bake macaroons; hiking Mt. Tabor with Richard; dancing my brains out to FMR at the Church of Laurelthirst; widening slightly my familiarity with southeast Portland; picking up a friendly game of go at the Lucky Lab.

Breaking news: aging sucks. I used to blah blah blah but now my back hurts the next day, blah blah blah. What’s your gripe about aging?

Spilling the Flakes Dept.: here’s C’s recipe for awesome homemade macaroons direct from her notebook (and hereby awarded the official blig rave of approval):

1 cup cream of coconut
2 tbs light corn syrup
4 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
3 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
3 cups sweetened flaked or shredded coconut

Whisk cream of coconut, corn syrup, egg whites and vanilla; set aside. Mix both dry coconut substances in large bowl; pour in liquid with rubber spatula and mix. Bake on parchment covered sheet approx 15 minutes @ 375 degrees, baby.

I wanted to take Suzan to see Merle Haggard at the Paramont tonite, but it didn’t happen. The cold-like symptoms I’ve been trying to suppress reappeared, I felt rundown, and tickets cost a pretty $49.50 apiece. So instead we stayed home and listened to my ancient collection of Hag vinyl. OK I actually played 3 out of 4 albums; we didn’t listen to his ‘Farewell to Elvis’ — in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to that one — I just bought it for the cover. But the Hag is a great songwriter and singer who evolved, at least through 1981, the date of ‘Rainbow Stew’, the last of his albums which I own (and my favorite; the title track is a driving, upbeat hippie song?!). I kind of stopped listening to country music shortly thereafter. So I don’t know if he’s still writing new songs, if they’re better than ever, or if he’s coasting off his long career. But I love his songs because they’re so real. And he’s got such a great deep voice. Hats off to you Merle. Give ‘em a few chills in the Paramount tonite.

My Turkishness in Revolt

Lt. Watada, we salute you!
(Who needs to think when your feet just go.)

Today’s quiz: identify who is Iraqi and who is Iranian: